


The Open Door

by alaicrane



Series: Sanctuary Moon of Endor [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Body Worship, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Friendship, Gen, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Psychological Trauma, Resolved Sexual Tension, Roommates, Stormtrooper Culture, Touch-Starved, aka smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:03:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9660434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaicrane/pseuds/alaicrane
Summary: Their reasons for bunking together are (mostly) practical.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm several chapters into a post-war fic about these two (and Finn reuniting with his birth family). It's 100% an angst pit though. So, this three-shot will serve as a companion story to Reverently Anchored, and a palate cleanser for the future story in progress.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their reasons for bunking together were (mostly) practical.

I.

Moonlight has been streaming in through the barrack window for hours, yet she’s wide awake - but this is nothing new for Rey. Nights on Jakku could stretch as long and deep as a cloudless horizon, so over time, she’d trained herself well to operate on little rest. 

What she’s not so sure of is whether the tossing and turning on the opposite end of the room is normal for him, too.

Rey sits up in her bed. “Finn?”

His thrashing seems to stop at the sound of her voice, but soon, he isn’t moving at all. She squints at his suddenly still form in the darkness and feels a sickening wave of dread roll through her mind and body. 

She’s across the room and draped over him in seconds. 

“Finn?”

Holding his face in her hands, Rey can see up close that something is very wrong. His eyes are staring wide, unfocused and unnervingly blank, up at the ceiling. A living person should never look this way.

Yet, Finn’s pulse was racing beneath her thumb. He was warm, and alive.

_Not dead._

“Don’t look there,” she whispers, laying her head on the pillow beside his while gently turning his face towards hers. 

“Don’t look there. I’m here.”

Rey doesn’t stop stroking his flushed skin when his shallow breathing returns to normal, or the last remnant of terror leaves his eyes. Not even when Finn is finally able to focus on her. 

“Did I wake you?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

“No. Should I go back to my own bed?”

“Not yet.” 

Rey slides her hand down Finn’s neck to grip his t-shirt collar, closing her eyes with a sigh once she feels his forehead press against hers. “Then I’ll stay, for a little while,” she promises. He gathers her in closer before silently drifting off again. 

Within seconds, she’s followed him into sleep. 

 

II.

Orderly wasn’t the word for it. Finn is _meticulous_ about his living space. 

The first time she set foot in the room after returning to D’Qar with Luke, Rey thought Finn’s assigned med droid had mistakenly pointed her in the direction of an empty barrack. 

Both narrow beds had been tidily made, the desk clear of any data pads, decoration or basic clutter. Nothing adorned the dark grey walls nor the window sill, certainly large enough for a number of items if one wished to display them. 

The only evidence that anyone occupied the space at all was found when Rey had opened the closet door, revealing several sets of clothing in Finn’s size. Not a single thread of fabric, hanging or folded, was out of place. 

By the time Rey surveyed the attached fresher - with every soap, shampoo and moisturizer dispenser lined up on a rack in the spotless shower - she’d begun to wonder just how comfortable Finn felt in this new life. 

She doesn’t ask him about until the morning after she moves in.

“Old habits,” is all he says at first, as they stand side by side brushing their teeth. He rinses, then spits the paste into the sink. “In the Order, our rooms were inspected four times a day. If anything wasn’t where it was supposed to be, it could cost you anything from a meal to reconditioning.” 

“That’s barbaric.”

“Says the girl who grew up on the _worst_ planet in the galaxy.”

Rey briefly pulls her toothbrush from her mouth again. “Nice try changing the subject.” 

“...Fine.” 

She watches as Finn smooths a hand over his hair, which was more shortly cropped than it had been when they’d first met. Too short to even comb, now. “They told us it built discipline, but we all figured that sweeping a clean room for contraband was much easier than a messy one. Saves time.” 

Rey thought of a terrible old holovid they’d shown in the rec hall last week, about a band of rebel spies who’d somehow managed to amass all sorts of weapons while imprisoned in a maximum-security enemy camp. 

“What sorts of things could they possibly be expecting to find? Unless there were compartments in your bunks big enough to hide blasters or riot batons in?” she adds with a quirk of her lips.

She’d meant it as a joke, but Finn’s answering smile is uneasy. 

“No one would ever hide those, Rey. We were taught to see our weapons as extensions of our bodies. Phasma gifted us display units for them once we were old enough to reach the keypad locks. I got mine when I was almost 7.” 

At her stunned silence, he squeezes her shoulder, before walking behind her to exit the fresher. 

Rey distantly heard the familiar clunk of boots being pulled on as he clarified further, “Contraband was more about unauthorized communications.” 

“Like messages?” 

“Right...notes, for example. Encouraging someone after a bad sim score, or sending a condolence when someone’s squadmate didn’t survive a live-round training exercise or something. If a sweeper droid ever found a note like that and traced it back to you, it’d be straight to reconditioning.” 

Staring into the polished metal of the sink, Rey tries and fails to find the nerve to ask what she truly wants to know. _How can you be so good when they raised you to be a monster?_

“Hey, Finn?”

Rey hears the mechanical whir of their entrance open, but doesn’t see that he hasn’t left the barrack until his eyes are meeting hers in the mirror over the sink. “Before I went to find Luke, Poe told me he’d keep the gifts everyone brought you in the medbay somewhere safe. Where are they?”

A thoughtful look crosses Finn’s features as he steps further into the barrack and kneels by the foot of his bed. She walks over to sit cross-legged beside him, waiting while he pulls out a simple wooden box that had been shoved as close to the wall as possible. 

“I...I didn’t realize you knew about those,” he murmurs.

“I’m a scavenger. Did you really think you could hide any of your treasures from me?”

Soon, he’s reflecting the small smirk curved on her lips. 

“Good point.”

Finn takes out each item one by one. First comes a handwritten letter from the General. Next, a canister of fragrant dried tea leaves from Mandalore. Two pairs of fingerless gloves made from the same leather of the jacket Poe had given him. A set of worn but sturdy playing cards, followed by a large handful of other tokens offered to him while the base waited for him to wake up. 

Rey nudges his shoulder with hers. “I was thinking...maybe tonight, we could find a place in here for everything? I can bring in the rest of my things from the Falcon, too. Then, this will really be our home. If you want it to be,” she adds.

“That’s what I want.”

He doesn’t say anything anything else, just studies her for a long time. His eyes are so dark, she thinks, feeling her heartbeat speed against her ribs as his gaze drifts down from hers.

She can’t suppress a small shiver when Finn gently drags his thumb across her bottom lip, his touch searing and tender all in one.

“Toothpaste there,” he explains with a grin, then walks past her to leave her still sitting on the floor, surrounded by his gifts. 

By the time she’s reclaimed enough of her wits to ask whether he wants her to put everything back where it was, Finn has already gone and is likely well down the corridor. Oddly, he’d left the barrack door way wide open. 

Just one more thing Rey would need to get used to. 

 

III. 

Between his physical therapy, squadron drills and the closed intel meetings he’d been requested to attend every evening, Finn’s duty schedule was nothing like hers. 

Even if they’d tried to sync their free time more often, the unpredictable nature of Luke’s trainings made that a near pointless venture. 

Fortunately, very little ever got in the way of their nights. 

For Rey, the walk down the corridor connecting the medbay proper to its adjacent private barracks feels unusually long. The off-planet supply run with Luke was uneventful, but had nonetheless left her bone-tired and wanting nothing more than a shower, a bad holovid, and Finn’s arms around her as she fell asleep (this had happened by accident a few times since she moved in, but they haven’t seen each other in days - so that meant _planning_ for it to happen tonight was okay, and not weird). 

She’s a few feet from the open doorway of their barrack when she hears three distinct sets of laughter coming from within.

“Stars, kid! I don’t like the amount of blood I’m seeing on this bandage. If you don’t take it easier, we’re telling Rey when she gets back tomorrow.”

“Except I _have_ been taking it easy. I’m on light duty, for kriff’s sake!”

“You said the same thing to me yesterday, buddy. Ever consider that your definition of light duty might be a bit off?”

Eyebrows raised, Rey steps into the barrack to see Poe stretched out on the floor rug like a relaxed, man-sized cat, while a blonde, short-haired woman in a flightsuit sat perched behind Finn on his bed.

Finn - who was half-naked, reviewing a data pad and seemingly without a care in the world - turns his head slightly and shoots her a 100-watt smile. 

“Rey. You’re home early?”

“Yeah. General Organa called Luke back for a last-minute advisory meeting.”

Her own plans similarly thwarted, Rey is sure her smile must look more like a grimace as the other two occupants of the room stare at her standing in the doorway. 

“Hi...everyone.” 

Poe gives her a friendly nod while the short-haired blonde simply winks. 

“Karé Kun. I don’t think we’ve ever met, in person.”

“We haven’t,” Rey agrees, forcing herself to stop staring at the way the pilot’s hands laid so comfortably on the radiant skin of Finn’s shoulders. The sterile bandages and assortment of wound balms spread between the two of them made it clear that the prickling jealousy bubbling through her was immature, at best. Anyone who took good care of Finn was more than alright by her.

She steps further into the room and dumps her rucksack on the desk top. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m just Rey.”

“Trust me, I know who you are,” Karé follows with another wink. 

“Please don’t start,” Finn mutters. 

“Finn has told us all about you. Literally… _all_ about you.”

Poe and Karé share a grin that Finn definitely does not.

She doesn’t have the slightest idea what they’re getting at, but the energy in the barrack is so light that Rey can’t help but let her guard down further. “Really? What sorts of things have you heard?” she smirks, as she tugs off her mud-caked boots.

“Do you have a day or two, because that’s how long it would take to really dig into the specifics,” Poe comments while peeling the rind from a small, purple fruit. 

“And that’s if I don’t stop talking for meal, fresher or sleep breaks.”

Both of the pilots break into raucous laughter after Finn flicks a bandage roll at Poe’s forehead.

“Sorry you have to come home to such a mess,” Finn directs towards her with a bemused smile, resting his arms on his knees, “I’ll make sure to clean up all the med supplies, too.”

Poe chuckles. “Rude way to put it. And wasteful, might I add.” He tosses the contaminated bandage roll in the disposal bin.

“To answer your question, hon - good things,” the pilot says to her as she takes a seat at the desk, his tone several degrees more serious than before. 

“Great things, actually.”

It’s not that she’d given a lot of thought to this when she’d been off finding Luke, because she honestly hadn’t. But hearing that Finn had spoken of her in such a starkly positive way during the months they’d been apart sends an unexpected flush of heat to Rey’s cheeks. 

“I see.”

Despite his irritation with their guests, Finn doesn’t complain at all once Karé starts layering some type of white, wintry-smelling stuff on top of all the other balms she’d put on his wound, even when he starts trembling uncontrollably.

Rey can’t help but flinch as she watches the subtle signs of discomfort play across his features. “It hurts when she puts that kind on, doesn’t it?” she quietly asks him. 

“I’m fine. It’s bacta-laced, so it’s just cold to the point of burning, really.” 

The description reminds Rey so distinctly of the frigid air of Starkiller base that she perfectly understands his reactions. 

“I don’t like it either, none of us do,” Karé picks up, apparently noticing the frown Rey knows is forming on her own face. “It’s the best stuff the medbay’s got stocked for wound repair, though. Dameron,” Karé re-directs while looking back down towards her work, “if you’re just going to sit there taking up space in her barrack, maybe you could at least offer her a refreshment?”

“True.”

Rey gratefully accepts one of the spiny purple fruits handed to her, but gestures towards the bacta salve propped up next to Karé’s knee. 

“Pass that over too, please?”

Though he raises a curious brow, Poe dutifully reaches for then hands it to her, before re-joining the conversation between Finn and Karé as she carefully finished re-bandaging Finn’s back.

****

IV.

Rey is practically buzzing once Finn steps out of the fresher with just a pair of loose, deep blue pants on. Perfect opportunity. She tosses the data pad on her pillow as she jumps up from her bed, halting him where he stood with a gentle hand on his still-damp shoulder. 

“Don’t get dressed.” 

“Okay.” 

Then his brows knit together. “...Wait. Why?” 

Rey grins at Finn’s slowly dawning confusion as she pushes him into a seated position on the edge of the bed. 

“You’ll see.”

By the time she returns with a clean set of bandages in one hand and a supply bag in the other, he seems to relax a bit. “Oh. Dr Kalonia did mention that you’d asked to be placed on my rotation.”

 _Politely demanded_ might have been the more accurate account, but why would he need to know that?

“She told me the medbay is always short-staffed, and that’s why a few of the soldiers and pilots volunteered to learn how to care for your wound after you woke up.” _I wanted to be there when you woke up_ is what she thinks, blinking down at him.

“Hey. It’s fine if you didn’t want or need my help, but you didn’t even mention it?”

“You’ve only been back a few weeks, it just slipped my mind.”

Finn says it with no hesitation, but he’s also scanning her expression in that careful way of his. Rey has come to suspect he only does when he’s too inside his own head to say what he’s really thinking. 

“Maybe I didn’t want you to feel obligated to do this,” he admits, confirming her thoughts. 

Instead of telling him otherwise, Rey lowers herself on the bed and lets her arms slipping around him from behind set him straight. 

Being held like this - and holding _him_ like this - had quickly become one of her favorite things about sharing a barrack with Finn. This close, his vibrance in the Force wasn’t the distraction it became when they were further apart. 

It was just soothing. 

Rey could feel his heart, gentle and strong in equal measure, thumping steadily beneath her open palm. The warmth of his smooth, dark skin all along her bare arms and her cheek made the sensation that much better. 

Absently, she turns her face to press her lips against the nape of his neck. 

“You’ve got a lot to learn about me, my friend.”

“...Rey?”

Her eyes pop open, startled to feel the shivering of his body before an ounce of bacta had even touched his wound. “Finn, are you cold?” She loosens her hold on him. “Give me a minute, I’ll go adjust the thermostat-”

“No, no,” he interrupts, securing his grasp on her forearms around him. “I’m, uh - this is good. But, maybe you should get started so we can go to bed. To sleep.” 

He obviously can’t see her, but Rey nods in agreement, anyway. 

“I’m glad you’re not being stubborn about this. Or else, my surprise would’ve gone to waste.”

“Surprise?”

Rey hums at the unconcealed excitement in Finn’s voice as she finally releases him. She sprays both of her hands thoroughly with disinfectant. “That’s right.” 

Settling back on her knees, she takes a deep breath before slowly separating the edge of the bandage from his skin. 

She would never admit it to him but Rey _had_ been worried about this part - how she’d react to seeing the evidence of Ren’s savagery on Finn. 

By request, her morning meditation with Luke had been one of emotional self-control. Maintaining reason in the midst of sorrow, settling anger before it burned through everything in its path. She hadn’t wanted Finn to sense any hint of her lingering rage over his injury as she did this, because this wasn’t about her. It was about him.

She only wanted him to feel safe and adored. 

That preparation is why Rey is able to trace the tougher, cauterized edges of his scar with only reverence and curiosity. She traversed its irregular form with her fingertips, in a slow arc spanning the top of one shoulder blade down to the base of his spine. She imagines the delicately regenerating nerve and muscle beneath the rosy skin surrounding the wound, soon to be blended with the rest of the lovely, darker skin of the rest of his back.

With a grateful smile, her other hand curls around one his biceps as she carefully begins rubbing a clear salve into the healing wound.

Rey gets so caught up in her task that it takes her a moment to realize he’s vaguely shivering, yet again. “You _sure_ you don’t want me to at least grab you an extra blanket?”

“Don’t worry, it’s just the bacta,” Finn quietly responds.

“No, it’s not. I’ll prove it.”

He turns slightly to look right at her, and her smile grows as she brings the glass container in her palm into view. “I did some research on native flora with healing properties in the Ilenium system, and this is what Dr Kalonia and I came up with. None of that awful bacta crap in this one.” 

The pleasant surprise on his face when he tests the clear contents of the jar on his fingertips, is more than enough to drain the residual anger lurking in the pit of her belly. 

“It feels warm. Smells nice, too. You really made this for me?” 

“Sure. Luke wasn’t too happy about the time it took me to find the right plants, but he’ll get over it.” Eventually. “I hope you like it.”

Finn softly squeezes her knee, eyes traveling from the jar and back to her face. “Rey, I want…” He sighs, then starts again, “You remember that time Skywalker asked you to uproot a tree using just one tool?” Of course she did. Her entire body had doubled as a walking splinter for two days straight before it occurred to her to use the only tool strong enough for the given task - the Force. “Let me know if he asks you to do anything else crazy like that again.”

“Why? Plan on challenging him to a duel to avenge my wounded pride?”

He nods. “Tomorrow, in fact. After I die, the barrack is all yours.” 

They both laugh, but Finn’s threads off more quickly than hers, as his hand tightens on her knee. “Just let me know if you get hurt, and I’ll take care of you. We can see if this stuff works on bruises and cuts too, yeah?”

“Okay.”

They share a smile that seals the deal. 

Over the next week, Rey doesn’t wonder why her six fellow volunteers came to simultaneous agreement that Finn’s care would be best left to her, though none of them stopped visiting their barrack. 

She doesn’t think about how Finn’s shivering under her touch never completely goes away, or how swiftly their new routine came to include him patiently working out every knot, cramp and ache in her body with his strong hands. Rey doesn’t dwell on any of it, because none of it feels wrong.

Not until Finn leaves for his first off-planet assignment, and the dreams start.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Rey doesn’t think about how Finn’s shivering under her touch never completely goes away, or how swiftly their new routine came to include him patiently working out every knot, cramp and ache in her body with his strong hands. Rey doesn’t dwell on any of it, because none of it feels wrong._
> 
> _Not until Finn leaves for his first off-planet assignment, and the dreams start._

V.

Rey is drifting in and out of a restless sleep when the barrack door whirs closed. 

Tangles of her own loose hair obscure what little sight she would’ve had left in the darkness, but it doesn’t matter. Not when the thrum of his presence sharpens and amplifies her every remaining sense:

There’s the thud of boots on the floor leading up to her bed, steps careful and familiar and just slightly off from the cadence of his heartbeat. His breathing - faint as it was - still manages to disturb the flow of air in the room, raising the fine hairs on her bare limbs. Clean sweat, leather, and night air blended with an inviting, undefinable note she’d come to equate with only one person. 

Finn was home.

A slow, tired smile spreads across Rey’s face when she feels him lean down behind her to press a soft kiss to her nape. It had taken no time for this habit of hers to rub off on him, until it simply became one of their customary greetings to each other. 

“Rey,” she hears him whisper. His broad hand skims down the blanket covering her body and rests lightly on her hip. 

“Did I wake you?”

“Maybe,” she mutters into her pillow, before turning over to greet him properly. 

But he’s not there. 

In fact, the cool sheet bunched in her arms is as empty as the pristinely made bed across the room. His boots aren’t lined up next to hers beside their desk, where they always were. There was none of the usual lingering heat where his hands or lips had touched her. No evidence he’d come back to her at all.

The swelling panic doesn’t ebb until Rey closes her eyes.

Like this, she can _feel_ him here, with her. Surrounding her with a radiating warmth that’s only growing stronger with every passing second.

It’s muffled - but she can even hear him saying her name, now.

“Finn?” 

Her feet lower to the floor with a small smirk, eyes still shut. “I’m here,” she says. “Where did you go?” 

Rey isn’t surprised when he doesn’t answer her - not when he was already so close, and so clearly challenging her to figure out where he’d stashed himself in this small space. Despite her reasoning, the question is forming on her lips again when she’s interrupted by water striking on glass, and a deep, indulgent moan of her own name. 

Something about the combination makes Rey’s mind go blank, in favor of sparking a dull ache right between her legs. 

Her mouth goes dry as she glances toward the fresher.

 

VI.

“Well kriff, girl. Don’t stop there!”

“That’s it.”

“...really?”

Rey shrugs. “That’s it,” she repeats, pushing around the dregs of amber root stew in her bowl. “You asked why I haven’t been sleeping well. Never swore the reason why would be all that interesting.”

Jessika lowers her mug of caf to the tabletop. 

“So in this dream. A dream you’ve had two nights in a row at this point...you wake up just when things are getting good?”

“No. I wake up when things are getting _weird_.”

Rey chugs down the last of her own lukewarm caf, while simultaneously pretending not to notice the narrowing of Jessika’s eyes from across the table.

“That sounds convenient,” the pilot finally concludes. 

“Like a convenient, gigantic lie.” 

_That’s because it is._

“None of it was real, so why would I lie? Anyway, it would be wrong to have those sorts of dreams about Finn.” 

Jessika appears genuinely baffled. 

“Why?”

Because just imagining how real the fragrant heat pouring out from the fresher had felt in that dream, was making Rey’s body flush uncontrollably all over again. 

Recalling how she felt at the sight of Finn’s naked form in the mirror above the sink as he showered - how oddly frustrated she’d been at the lack of detail in that foggy reflection - was embarrassing. 

Thinking about how her curiosity had only intensified once she slid the shower door open and confirmed up close what Finn was doing to himself under that hot spray to make himself moan like that. 

Moaning her _kriffing name_ , no less... 

“Because me and Finn are friends.” 

Rey stands up from her bench with empty tray in hand and face in flames. “You ready to go?” she questions.

Jessika’s smirk doesn’t drop, but thankfully, the subject does. They toss their trays on a conveyer belt at the back of the mess hall, then step out into the mid-afternoon sunshine in the direction of the hangar bay. 

Luckily taking the longer, less populated route.

Maybe it was just paranoia, or lack of sleep - even less than the scant few hours she was accustomed to. But the strange ideas which had taken over the subconscious corners of her mind ever since Finn left weren’t going away, and Rey couldn’t help but wonder if others could somehow see the result of it all over her. 

Luke, with his keen sense of her emotional states, definitely had.

“Rey,” he’d said that morning in the woods, the single word somehow conveying a murky acceptance and faint disapproval at the same time, “I wouldn’t be opposed to your taking the rest of the day for private study.” 

“It’s great how Skywalker gave you the entire afternoon off,” Jessika comments just as the sloped metal roof of the hangar bay is within sight, nearly voicing her own train of thought.

“Seems like your dad’s got a heart after all?”

Rey shields her eyes from the sun, swallowing down a bitter laugh. “My father left me to starve for years, Jess. If he’s still alive out there, he’s no one I’d want to know.”

“...Oh. Most of us just assumed Luke was - people having just been saying...”

When she glances to her right, Rey is startled to see the look on Jessika’s face is one of pure sorrow. 

“Fuck. I’m so sorry, Rey.”

“Don’t be. I took care of myself just fine.”

Rey lowers her hand to her side once they enter the hangar, bustling with the activity of the twenty or so mechanics and droids putting the final touches on the latest round of X-Wing upgrades. The smell of fuel, newly-welded durasteel and engine grease is heavy in the cavernous space, a pleasant distraction from the unpleasant thoughts Jessika had accidentally stirred up. 

But as they suit up, Rey can still sense the guilt rolling off the silent pilot in waves, and it’s the last thing she wants. 

Jessika Pava was one of the first Resistance fighters who made her feel welcome on base - not as the girl who brought the legendary Luke Skywalker back into the fight, but as Rey, a normal person working to build a new life of her own. 

That was something she would never forget.

“There’s one thing I miss about Niima outpost. No pointless chatter getting in the way of the job,” Rey speaks into her headset, once both of their X-wings are up in the air and miles above the base. 

“Sometimes, I think this one girl named Pava spends more time gossiping than piloting? Maybe she should switch to intel work. You didn’t hear that from me, though.”

She couldn’t see her, but Rey could tell the gentle teasing had worked. 

“Wow!” 

Jessika’s laughter streams brightly through the headset. “It’s called multitasking, smartass, and I happen to be amazing at it. Hey, these alignment adjustments are perfect,” she notes. “What about yours?”

Rey veers off course, banking right while rapidly increasing her speed. The view of the hilly region below them is beautiful, but not better than the freedom of being in complete and utter control, so far above the earth. 

“All good. Checking the engines next.”

“Copy that!”

They circle the base a few more times, systematically ruling out any flaws from the various upgrades which couldn’t have been identified without in-flight inspection.

“You know, Finn is handsome. He’s kind of gorgeous, really,” Jessika says in an almost offhand manner Rey isn’t sure how to respond to. 

It’s enough for her to consider sharing what Jessika (likely) already knew: that her dream hadn’t come close to ending on a glimpse of Finn’s reflection in the mirror.

It hadn’t ended when she caught him staring back, watching as she dropped her shirt and underwear in a pile on the floor and met him in the steam-flooded shower. She didn’t wake up when her body pressed slickly against the solid, finely-conditioned planes of his own, the heat in her belly increasing as he pulled her in closer, dark eyes settling on her parted lips. 

Not even when she’d closed her eyes and slanted her mouth over his. The taste of him filling her with a desperate, bottomless kind of hunger she hadn’t known existed.

Rey furrows her brow in thought.

“He’s not hard to look at,” she finally responds. “So Jess...if you see Finn like that, does that mean you’re not a lesbian anymore?”

She can only register blank static for a moment, but a split second later Rey’s ears are ringing from the sharp bursts of laughter through the headset. 

“Oh gods! I’m gay, dear, not blind.” 

Jessika’s chuckles taper off into a sigh. “Here’s one more lesson for you: there’s nothing wrong with having a sex dream or two about a friend. It happens,” she says.  
“Doesn’t have to change anything in real life.”

For the first time that day, Rey feels the tension drain from her limbs. 

“You sure?”

“Friendship is whatever you make of it. As long as you guys stay on the same page, you have nothing to worry about. Copy that, pervert?”

Rey rolls her eyes, following Jessika’s X-Wing in its gradual descent towards the hangar bay. 

“Copy.”

 

VII.

Three days was no time compared to the months they’d spent light years apart, but that doesn’t make her any less eager to see Finn again. Nonetheless, Rey has to tell herself not to break into a sprint after seeing the occupancy light flashing a bright green from the keypad down the corridor.

She’s raising her hand to input the barrack’s entrance code when a flash of red on the floor suddenly catches her attention. 

Blood is seeping out from from beneath the closed door, swirling around her boots at a speed suggesting something unthinkable has just happened in that room.

“No,” she says out loud, fighting the urge to vomit.

“It’s not possible. Not fucking possible!”

Rey falls to her knees and slides her hands into the mess, refusing to dwell on the sickening warmth of it so she can concentrate on locating then running her fingers along the bottom seam of the door’s hydraulic entrance. It’s airtight to reduce contamination, just as every private barrack in the medbay was. 

Nothing could leak out, nothing could get in. 

She runs her fingers along the entire length of the seam again, checking for gaps that don’t exist, and then twice more, all the while choking on short sobs of relief. 

_He’s not dead in there, because this isn’t real._

“Wake up,” she whispers to herself, sitting against the closed door regardless of the blood getting all over arms and legs, streaking her clothes an inky red. The pool is impossibly still spreading out into the corridor her as she covers her face. 

“Wake up, Rey. Right now.”

 _Wake up._

_Wake up._

What seems like hours later, a little whimper escapes her as someone brushes strands of hair from her sweaty nape, to press a trio of warm kisses there. Rey turns her head on the pillow to see Finn kneeling eye-level in front of her bed, his smile only growing despite the less-than-perfect picture she must be making. 

“Two extra,” she murmurs, reaching out to curl a hand around his neck and pull him in closer, pressing her forehead against his with a shaky exhale.

“What did I do to earn those?”

“Had to make up for the days I missed, obviously.” 

He leans back a bit, grazing his thumb over her cheekbone while pointedly not asking about the tears not yet dried on her face. Now that they were roommates, Finn had woken her from enough bad dreams to learn that she preferred not to talk about them, afterward. 

“How have you been, Rey?” 

__“Good. Busy as usual.”_ _

_Missed you,_ she thinks, not quite able to discern the details of his expression in the darkness as her fingertips drift over his eyelids, nose, cheeks, then the stubble along his jaw. Letting herself drink in his presence for just a minute, the reality that he’s safely come back to her again, like he promised. 

“How dangerous was your assignment?” she abruptly asks him.

__“Routine. Nothing to worry over.”_ _

__Finn squeezes her hand reassuringly. “I’m not convinced Serrenno’s fully aligned with the New Republic Alliance, but they funded our armory expansion. Their governor agreed to criminalize business trade with the Order, too.”_ _

__“Nice work, gorgeous.”_ _

__The shy smile that blossoms on Finn’s face falters slightly as his dark gaze travels down her prone body on the comforter, wrapped in nothing but a thin towel._ _

__“You fell asleep like this?”_ _

__“Yeah, didn’t mean to,” she explains. She’d planned to take a short nap after showering, get dressed, then head to the rec hall for that djarik tournament BB-8 told her about. Clearly, she’d been more tired than she’d thought._ _

__“You sitting there til sunrise, or coming to bed?” she prompts._ _

__Finn’s eyes quickly snap to hers. “Oh. I’ll be right there.” He clears his throat as he stands, tossing his jacket over the desk chair before lining his boots up next to hers._ _

__As she watches him walk towards the fresher, the peace flowing throughout Rey disintegrates once she notices his barely perceptible limp, and the fresh bloodstains on the back of his t-shirt._ _

_Routine. Nothing to worry over._

____ _ _

____ _ _

____VIII._ ___

___Rey falls to the forest floor in a heap, knocking the wind from her lungs.___

 __

“I’m _fine_ ,” she preemptively huffs at Luke, who is silently standing over her with the same concerned frown he’d worn the last three times she broke her levitation. 

____“Focus,” he gently orders._ _ _ _

____After crossing her legs in the dewy grass, Rey closes her eyes and waits for the breeze to no longer brush cool on her face, for every sound and vibration of the forest to dilate down to a faint buzz. She wills every breath to guide her closer to the center of the Force, where light eclipsed everything, and everything weighed nothing._ _ _ _

____Rey has risen level to the lowest branch of a giant tree when she begins to sense a buoyant energy webbing beneath her - living, spinning threads of light. Luke has never created a safety net during these exercises before, but she’s also never lifted herself this high off the ground. It’s reassuring and mildly irksome to feel the distance between the net and herself closing in._ _ _ _

_I can do this without you_ she communicates to Luke through the Force. There’s a long hesitation on his part, then a retreat of his energy as he respects her wishes. 

Except something about the experience of that loss is unexpectedly, terrifyingly familiar. 

_Rey, hold your focus!_

____But it’s already too late._ _ _ _

____That night as she’s propped up in bed re-reading one of Luke’s selected texts (and second-guessing her decision not to ice her left knee), Finn walks through the barrack door and heads straight to their closet._ _ _ _

____“Hey,” she greets him._ _ _ _

____“Hi, Rey.”_ _ _ _

____He pulls off the long-sleeved thermal he’d been wearing, and exchanges it for a more lightweight shirt. Rey figures he must be going for a late-night jog.____

“Did you eat yet?” she asks, flipping another page.

____“I’m not really hungry.”_ _ _ _

____“You should eat something before you go running, though.”_ _ _ _

____Finn turns towards her with the most agitated look she’s ever seen on anyone. “That reminds me. I heard a strange rumor from the General that you almost died today. Fell out of a tree, right?” he asks, but she doesn’t answer. “How about you forget about my diet, and work on a plan for that to never happen again.”_ _ _ _

____It’s not the sarcasm in his tone that gets to her, but the fear laced through it._ _ _ _

____“Come on, don’t be that way. See?”_ _ _ _

____Rey carefully stands up from her bed on both feet and turns in a circle. “I caught myself before I hit the ground.” For the most part, anyway. She flops back down on the bed, with a wince._ _ _ _

“And just for the record, I didn’t fall out of a tree. I fell _next_ to one.”

____“You must’ve fallen right on your head, if you really think I care about the difference.”_ _ _ _

Without warning, the words _routine_ and _nothing to worry over_ reverberate through her mind for the thousandth time that day, making her see red. Rey glares at him, all attempts at lightening the mood gone. 

“Look here, hypocrite. I don’t need Luke, or you, or anyone else on this kriffing base lecturing me about what I’m doing wrong. The fact is, I don’t need you at all.” 

____“No, you don’t,” he immediately concedes._ _ _ _

____“But you have me.”_ _ _ _

____She had Finn, who had grown up in darkness yet shined like a sun._ _ _ _

____Finn, who nearly lost his life protecting hers._ _ _ _

____Finn, the best and most confusing friend Rey suspected she would ever have._ _ _ _

She breaks their eye contact first, too certain that the tears building behind her eyelids will spill over if she doesn’t. “We’ve only met a few months ago.” _You left me once, there’s nothing stopping you from doing it again,_ she thinks, staring down at the worn text in her lap. 

____“We hardly know each other, Finn.”_ _ _ _

____The mattress sinks slightly when he sits beside her on the bed, resting his back against the wall._ _ _ _

____“You get the worst cramps when you don’t drink enough during the day. No matter what I do later, you’re still in pain. I hate it,” he quietly says. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re still rationing water, but I know you’d never admit it if you were.”_ _ _ _

____An oddly exposed feeling courses through Rey as she lets Finn slip the ancient text from her hold. He uncurls her tightly balled fist between both of his larger hands, inspecting each of her fingers one by one._ _ _ _

____“I know there’s something special about your hands. You can fix anything, and you don’t give up until whatever was broken is better than it was before.”_ _ _ _

____Touching her this way isn’t new for him. Rey could remember at least a dozen times he’d tended to the cuts and burns along her palms, knuckles and arms, soothing her hurts with a patient resolve he never seemed to run out of._ _ _ _

____But this time feels different - what he’s saying is so very different._ _ _ _

____“I always loved putting things together,” she tells him with a quirk of her lips, still not quite able to meet his eyes yet.____

“Deep down, I think my projects kept me sane all those years. Kept me from thinking too much.”

____“I know, Rey.”_ _ _ _

____“How?”_ _ _ _

____Finn bumps her forehead with his. “You just told me.”_ _ _ _

____He only laughs harder when she shoves him onto his back and straddles his waist, effectively trapping him beneath her. “You think you’re so kriffing clever, don’t you?” she asks._ _ _ _

“I _was_ in the top 1% of my training class.”

____Rey smiles down at his smirking face, allowing her weight to fully rest on him as she plays with the bottom hem of his shirt._ _ _ _

____“Then you don’t need me giving you any more hints.”_ _ _ _

____“No loss. I’ve got a hundred more things I could say about you, easy.”_ _ _ _

____“You’re such a liar, Finn.”_ _ _ _

____He throws a forearm over his face, with a heavy sigh._ _ _ _

____“Not about that,” he mutters._ _ _ _

____He goes quiet after that, and Rey feels a dangerous sort of curiosity tug at her in the extended silence. One that seems strong enough to push them both over the edge of a precipice she doesn’t feel prepared to fall off of._ _ _ _

____“Have you ever..." she swallows, then bites her lip.____

"Do you ever have weird dreams?”

“No. Well, I don’t _think_ I do,” he clarifies, sitting up slightly on his elbows. “Even as a kid, I’ve only ever remembered my nightmares.”

____“I hate when you have those. I hate it whenever you’re in pain,” she admits, not realizing she’s echoed his earlier sentiment right back to him until the words are already spoken._ _ _ _

____Finn’s hands grip tighter on her thighs in response, and she senses a new understanding pass between them. A calmness washes over her that dominates her nerves, and pushes her forward. Rey shifts backwards a bit on his body, deftly undoing his belt buckle while holding eye contact with him - waiting for a signal he wants her to stop, that never comes.____

____She doesn’t know if it’s trust, or some shared, newly found boldness - the belt is tossed over the side of the bed, and they've worked his pants and underwear down his hips just seconds later - but Finn seems as fully enthralled in this as she is, a small grunt of approval escaping him once she carefully takes his thick, half-erect cock in her hand._ _ _ _

____Rey feels dizzy as she savors the contrast of the velvet-soft texture of his skin with the ridged veins running the length of his shaft, humming with interest as he rapidly hardens in her grasp. She experimentally caresses the underside of his balls, at the same time her other hand slides up, and then down his entire length. Finn’s head falls back and he shudders, gently bucking underneath her as she starts stroking him in earnest._ _ _ _

____“Should I stop?” she asks, still going slow and easy, and smirks when all he can do is wordlessly shake his head no._ _ _ _

____Rey is pleased at the clear fluid leaking from the head of his cock, how it helps her hand glide faster up and down his length. She wants to hear a very specific sound from Finn's lips and doesn’t _intend_ to stop until she gets it. _ _ _ _

____But when the rhythmic catches in his breath blend into those deep, lovely, moans of her name she was hoping for, she finds herself unconsciously grinding herself against his thigh, nearly losing herself in the sensation._ _ _ _

____His cock thumps against her belly as she releases him._ _ _ _

____“Rey?”_ _ _ _

____When she stares back at him, Finn’s eyes are so dark, his pupils must have blown out._ _ _ _

____“Lie down,” she whispers._ _ _ _

____He does, and Rey immediately feels more in control of herself as she moves off his body to lie alongside him instead. She nuzzles her nose into his neck, sucking little kisses there. “This is better,” she breathes in his ear, then picks up exactly where she left off._ _ _ _It’s less than a minute before he comes, his body going rigid as she pumps every last bit of the hot, sticky release from him._ _

____They're both panting, out of breath and unwilling to move for the foreseeable future. Beads of sweat slip down her temple, and the heat pouring off Finn as he comes down is satisfying in a way that makes her grateful he can’t see her expression, right now._ _ _ _

Just when she's certain he’s fallen asleep, his arm tightens around her, holding her close. "Rey."

"Hmm?"

“I thought about you a lot, when I was gone.”

She grins to herself. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one (or two) more chapters. feedback is motivating, and very much appreciated <3


	3. author's note

Hi :)

I'll always have a spot in my heart for Star Wars (Rey, Finn, Leia, Luke, Poe, in particular tbh) but my motivation to continue this series is nil. Permanent hiatus. 

Haven't seen TLJ yet and don't plan to. But...I want to sincerely thank everyone who supported my writing for this fandom. Love y'all <3

AC

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear your thoughts <3


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